The desire to have the hair retain a particular shape is widely held. A common methodology for accomplishing this is applying hair styling, or "setting" compositions to the hair, typically to damp or dry hair. These compositions provide temporary setting benefits, and should be removable by water and/or by shampooing. The materials used in the compositions to provide the setting benefits are generally applied in the form of mousses, gels, lotions or sprays.
High levels of style retention, or hold, are typically expected from hair compositions whether applied as a gel or a spray. Style retention in gel products is typically achieved by use of one or more hair fixative polymers, such as polyvinylpyrollidone (PVP) and the copolymer of PVP with vinyl acetate (PVP/VA) in combination with a gelling agent. A commonly used gelling agent is crosslinked polyacrylic acid, known by the CTFA name of Carbomer. When such polymers are incorporated into hair fixative compositions containing conventional gelling agents they can provide suitable style retention attributes. However, such compositions can give a sticky feel on the hair and hands during and after application as well as leaving the hair feeling stiff and unnatural.
It has now been found that certain combinations of gelling agents and hair fixative polymers can deliver excellent styling benefits without the sticky and stiff feel usually associated with conventional styling gels.
Thus a need exists for hair styling compositions which deliver effective style retention, impart a hair conditioning effect, have a non-sticky hair and on-hand feel, are easily brushed out, are resistant to flakiness and at the same time have stable product and viscosity characteristics and remain fully stable under long term and stressed temperature storage.